Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Hello, where yon been?” said the groceryman to the bad boy, as he came along with an old-fashioned oilcloth carpet-bag, with one handled gope. and a tired look on the carpet-bag and the boy, as though they had just returned from a journey. “Haven’t seen yon in here for two weeks, and I began to think you had been abducted, or mysteriously disappeared. Yon look sick.” “Oh, I am not sick, hat tired and sleepy and hungry. I wish you would cut me off a cheese-rind, or give mo a herring-skin, or anything," said the bad boy, as lie dropped the carpet-bag on the floor and dropped onto a halfbushel measure and closed his eyes. “We axe just on tbe way from the depot, and pa has left me to carry tliis old carpet-sack, and he has gone up the alley to climb over the back fence, cause lie wore his boots out on the railroad ties coming up from the Chicago convention.”' “What! Had to walk back!" said the groceryman, as he handed the boy a generous slice of cheese with a spot of green mold on the under side. “I should suppose your pa had influence enough to get a pass, or borrow money to get home with, if lie got busted.” “That’s what pa thought,” said the boy, as he made a camel’s track in the piece of cheese, and then, making up a face at the moldy mouthful, readied into a cracker barrel to get some crackers to take the taste out. “But borrowing was played out the second day. Fa lent money for two days, and then ,had to borrow, but they had aU quit lending when pa’s turn came to borrow. Gosh, but pa and I are out of politics from this out. Fa says ho will never vote again. He says the country is all gone to the dogs.” “Well, what was jour pa down there for, anyway ? He wasn’t a delegate, was he?” asked the groceryman. “No, pa was only an assistant delegate, and I was pa’s assistant,” said the boy, as-he gathered in groceries and provisions with both hands, and ate as though he had fasted for several days. “You see, the politician's have been playing it on pa for six months. They get him to work in ward politics by encouraging him to think he is an important factor in the country’s affairs. He wanted to be a delegate, and they encouraged him, bat he got beat, and then they told him he had better go as an assistant delegate. They told him that delegates did not amonnt to anything without some smart fellows to tell them how to vote, and what they wanted was a lot of outsiders to go along and brace up the delegates, and ‘whoop-it-up.’ There is nothing that pa likes any 1 letter than to whoop-it-up, and he took me aloug to give me an insight into politics and carry the sachet. I don’t want any more insight into politics. I have had insight enough to last me until I am 21. Pa told me, all the way down to Chicago, what an important position it was to be assistant delegate, and how much depended upon clear-headed outsiders, who really managed the whole business. I expected they would carry pa on their shoulders. There wai a baud at the depot, and pa pulled up his collar, and pulled down his vest, and looked around as much as to say, ‘watch me now,’ and I thought be was going to make a speech, when the crowd walked right over him, and his hat come off and rolled under a car, and somebody picked it up aud left an old dirty hat on the ground. Pa was mad, but when the crowd got away i that was all the hat there was, and pa j took it and gave it to me, and he took j mine. It was too small for pa, but it \ made him look as though he had a 1

great big head, and so I didn’t kick. We went to a hotel, and a man grabbed the sachel, and told pa to go to room 1250, and pa was tickled, ’cause lie thought a room had been saved for him. Then a fellow came along and ha d for the delegates to put on badges. Pa took a badge and put it on, and he looked proud, and a fellow he used to know asked him for $5 till Le could see the chairman of the delegation. Pa took out his pocket-book and let him Jiave it, and before he got the pocket-book in his pocket another fellow asked him for change for a ten, and pa handed it to him, and the crowd closed in so tight pa could not find the man to get the ten. Then we went to find our room, and wandered around the hotel until we found there were only 600 rooms, and no such room as twelve-fifty, and a porter told us to get out. Pa kicked because he couldn’t get his satchel, and a big fellow took him by the neck and led liira out on the sidewalk. Pa said he would make ’em smart for that, and then we tried to hunt up the rest of the delegates, hat no delegate would have anything to do with pa, and they all laughed at him except the colored delegates, and they wouldn’t do anything only drink with pa. They laughed so much at pa’s badge that I took a good look at it, and found that it wa 4 an advertisement for plug tobacco printed on satin with fringe on it. Pa was mad when he found it out, hut he couldn’t find the delegate that gave it to him. Well, we went to a restaurant and tried to get something to eat, and aH we conld get was bread, and pa bad his pocket picked, and we couldn’t get a place to sleep, and walked around town all night Pa got a little sleep by spelling a policeman, but I didn’t sleep a wink. Half the night theire were delegations marching arou- d with bands, and pa would fall in behind, and the delegate at the rear of the procession would drive him away.. In the morning we went over to the depot and borrowed fifty cents of a conductor that pa knew, who goes to our charch, and then we got coffee for breakfast, and started for the convention. We couldn’t get within four blocks of the building, *nd didn't have no tickets, and they drove u* out of the line. Pa found one of the men who encouraged him to go to the convention, and tried to get a ticket, bat the man told pa to go over on the lake front, beck of the tiposiion Building, and be would bring him i ticket. We went over there : and -laved four hours, and the man never a ne. Va got thirsty, and followed a -rowd into a saloon to toke a drink vith them, and the bar-tender fired him .at, O, it was oae continual round at pleasure. Pa was discouraged, ■■ .and

skid we would go to the hotel and get our satchel and go home, so we went there and asked for the satchel, and the Sorter threw this old satehel at pa’s ead. It was one somebody had tried ; to get board on, and there was nothing in it, bnt pa took it He aaid it would look better to travel with a satchel. Ho we got enough convention and went over and got. on a freight train, ahd the conductor put us off at Evanston, and we walked to the next station and got on another, and was put off, and we kept it up, off and on, till we got here. Hay, I think politics is a fraud, don’t yon ?” “That is tho way I have,always looked at politics,” said the groceryman, and the bod boy got up to go ont, saying, “I am a little interested in knowing how Sa will explain this business to mo. le has been making her believe he was high np in politics, and to come home in this way will be sure to arouse her suspicious,” and the boy hobbled ont with the satchel in his hand and a stone bruise on his heel— Peck's Sun,